


say something nice

by Macremae



Series: School of Newt [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Body Worship, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Fluff, Edging, Established Relationship, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Praise Kink, Trans Newton Geiszler, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:47:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29772918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: “Oh my God,” Newton whines from somewhere near the top of his range. His eyes are shut tight, hips twitching underneath Hermann’s hand. A deep, crimson blush has spread down to his shoulders, and his toes are visibly curling from the effort it takes not to finish himself off. “Oh my God, I hate you actually. What the fuck. You can’t just say that shit!”“Mm, I can,” Hermann nearly purrs, and swipes his thumb across Newton’s bottom lip. “But this can all be over if you just admit I’m right. Two words.” He smirks. “And something nice about yourself. To call it even.”Hermann, in his professional, husbandly opinion, thinks Newton could do with a little positive self-talk, and he's willing to do just about anything to prove he's right.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Series: School of Newt [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2183523
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	say something nice

**Author's Note:**

> a big city titty THANK YOU to elliot for hashing this out with me (aka sending the crying emoji while i wrote porn in your dms) and being a choice ass beta. manbun newt supremacy.

“Babe,” says Newton from the kitchen table, his voice lower and light in the way it becomes when shaped by a smile. “I know literally every teacher says this, but I have the best students in the world.”

“Oh dear,” Hermann sighs. He sets down his mug of tea like a battle-hardened general. “What piece of internet slang did they teach you now?”

“No, look.” Newton draws his attention and holds up a piece of paper covered in text and a few diagrams. It’s typed, with words here and there written in pencil. At the top is a large, red “A”. He sets it down and shows Hermann another; the same, except this time bearing an “A+”. Then a third: another “A”. One that says “A-”. “A” again. Then finally, a “100%” next to its subsequent “A+”, and a glittery frog sticker completing the trio. Newton is beaming. “It’s their soil unit test. They all rocked it.”

Hermann feels a ghostly flutter of pride in his chest. Newton had been so nervous at first, when asked to supplant the cadets’ criminally scant education in STEM fields. Despite his long (one might even say impressive) teaching record, he’d paced about their apartment for weeks leading up to the first class. Doom-filled scenarios of them cowering in fear, or freezing him out with icy judgement, had been hard to dispel. He had even double checked the power point.

And now Hermann is in possession of some slightly illicitly acquired (rather: he paid Cadet Malikov five dollars for the file) footage of his husband raving about sea star digestive systems during an outdoor lesson at the beach, and falling into a tide pool mid-sentence. Some things thankfully never change.

“That’s wonderful, darling,” he says warmly, inclining his head from where he’s tucked into a corner of the couch. “You should be very proud of them. And yourself, of course. The difference a good education can make in someone’s lifeー”

“Oh, I dunno about that,” Newton replies, rubbing the back of his neck and the few stray hairs curling over it. Hermann is about to form an _extremely_ impassioned rebuttal when he continues, “Anyone could teach ‘em this stuff. I was just the one free guy lying around with a license.”

Hermann’s eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t think you give yourself nearly enough credit. These are teenagers, Newton. They can smell fear and taste loopholes.”

Newton shakes his head. “Nah. They definitely go easy on me. I think it’s ‘cause they know how out of practice I am.” He chuckles. “At least I’m not trying to seem like an expert with Kool-Aid tips and braces anymore.” He twirls the red pen between his fingers. “I appreciate it, babe, I really do, but you’re trying to give me too big a head about this. I’m pretty much a glorified tutor.”

Hermann narrows his eyes, but lets Newton return to selecting stickers to place on each test. He quietly closes his book, fishes his tablet from among the throw pillows, and opens a new document in his “Lists” folder. At the top of the first page, he writes quite possibly the most ludicrous title set his mind has ever conceptualized:

_DBT BDSM Action Plan_   
_Positive Self-Dirty Talk and Cathartic Orgasm Denial: What Has My Life Become_

* * *

Typically when they’re having sex, Hermann likes to draw things out. Newton has turned him into a bit of a glutton for anticipation; the way his blush spreads from the tip of his nose down to bleed into the colors of his tattoos, the pitch of his moans rising higher and higher with every thrust, the tensing of those gorgeously sturdy thighs around him. Hermann is a scientist; he enjoys observing the process. 

Tonight, however, will be a lesson in patience for the both of them.

He sets a quick, steady pace with his fingers, curling two of them up and out and taking advantage of their length. Newton is mouthing lazily against his neck, grinding his hips up in time and dragging his clit across the pad of Hermann’s thumb. His breath quickens, and Hermann decides to cheat a little: he tugs in the back of his mind for one of the thin strands of their ghost Drift left. 

“Oh fuck,” Newton murmurs, and _there_ , he’s almost at the brink, which is the precise moment Hermann whispers into the shell of his ear, “Don’t you think you look lovely, darling?”

“Ha,” he says, half laugh, half choked-off moan, miles from coherent. “Yeah, right.”

And that is when Hermann brings his hand to a complete and sudden stop.

It takes a moment for Newton to register, expecting an orgasm that Hermann can feel fizzle into tension. His sigh catches in his throat. “WhーHermann?” He leans back, then catches sight of the droll look on Hermann’s face. “What the hell?”

“Are you saying I’m wrong?” Hermann asks by way of an explanation. The corners of his mouth are turned down delicately. “Because if you’re saying I’m wrong, Newton, I don’t feel especially inclined to let you enjoy yourself at _my_ expense.”

Newton at last catches on, and his face breaks into an incredulous, open-mouthed scowl. “Areー are you kidding me? Because I won’t stop and call myself sexy when I’m right about to come? Orー” He rolls his eyes too dramatically for it to not be a front. “For fuck’s sake, dude, you’re not my therapist.”

Hermann raises an eyebrow. “I hope not, or this would be highly unethical. I do expect you to accept I’m right, though.”

“You want me toー to compliment myself?” Even the phrase has Newton’s blush deepening. “Like, during sex? Isn’t that a little narcissistic?”

“You’ve never had any trouble with that before,” he says flatly. “I don’t see how it could be so hard. There’s plenty about you I find _very_ enticing.”

He removes his fingers from Newton’s cunt and runs both hands over his upper thighs, thumbs stroking the creases gently. “Your thighs. They’re soft and strong and colorful; I can leave as many marks as I like on them and no one would ever see.” He squeezes one in a way that tears a sound from the back of Newton’s throat. “Except me, of course. I always know exactly where to look.”

Hermann pushes himself up and splays his hands over Newton’s stomach. “And here. You’re very sensitive here.” To prove his point, he leans down and nips at a bit of pudge. “Comfortable. I like seeing that you’re healthy and happy. I like how we fit together.” He nudges a knee between Newton’s thighs, just close enough to be impossible to grind against, and settles on top of him. Even with regular meals and his husband’s cooking crusade, his stomach still makes a concave slot for Newton’s to rise perfectly into. 

Newton tries to subtly inch himself down towards Hermann’s good knee, but Hermann rests a knowing hand on his hips, sliding his other up to play with one of his nipples. “Oh, but I think you’re most sensitive _here_. You know, I sometimes wonder if I could make you come just pulling and sucking on these, until they’re raw and you’re getting off on thin air.” He rolls one between his fingers idly, grinning at the rush of swears that spill from Newton’s lips. “Hm. Noted. But really,” he sweeps a hand up his chest and neck to rest a single finger on his bottom lip, “I don’t think anything can compare to your lips, dear.”

“Oh my God,” Newton whines from somewhere near the top of his range. His eyes are shut tight, hips twitching underneath Hermann’s hand. A deep, crimson blush has spread down to his shoulders, and his toes are visibly curling from the effort it takes not to finish himself off. “Oh my God, I hate you actually. What the fuck. You can’t just say that shit!”

“Mm, I can,” Hermann nearly purrs, and swipes his thumb across Newton’s bottom lip. “But this can all be over if you just admit I’m right. Two words.” He smirks. “And something nice about yourself. To call it even.”

Newton tries to chase the finger as it leaves his mouth, chest heaving. The exact moment when his desire wins out is endearingly apparent. “Okay,” he pants, “okay, okay, fine, I’llー just let me think of something. Please.”

Hermann plants a kiss on his bottom lip. “Of course. Easy, yes?”

“I _hate_ you.”

He laughs and settles back on his knees, keeping the hand on Newton’s hips steady while slowly rubbing the fingers of the other over his clit. Newton lets out a long, throaty sigh, rolling his hips against Hermann’s hand, even more sensitive after the first denial. 

First two, then Hermann adds a third and fourth against each side. He massages it in circular motions, loops growing tighter and tighter until he hears Newton gasp out the beginning of a sentence.

“I’mー” he says, then takes a shuddering breath to steady himself. “I’m really good at sucking your dick. I can take pretty much all of it every time, andー”

Hermann’s hand stills immediately.

“Oh come the fuck _on_!” Newton shouts. “I got blue-balled for ten years, why don’t I get a free pass on this?!”

Hermann gives a very put-upon sigh. “Because, Newton, I’m not asking if you know what you do for _me_. I'm trying very hard to help you understand that you’re the most gorgeous man I've ever seen, and the smartest, and quite funny when you aren’t smug about it, and you clearly aren’t listening to me.” He sniffs. “I expect more, to be frank.”

Newt sets his face in an obviously shaky glare. “Okay, _what_ the fuck are you getting out of this?”

“Nothing,” says Hermann primly. “That’s the point.”

“Okay, lemme rephrase that, asshole: _what_ about this is getting you off?”

Hermann takes a deep breath, as if every minute he spends explaining this is another year off his life. His voice, however, he is unable to keep from turning rough. “Well. Typically the sight of you spread out and begging for release would be…” He stops to clear his throat, composing himself, and hears Newton’s sharp intake of breath at the realisation of how hard Hermann is against his thigh. “Extremely sufficient. But. I have always had significantly more self control than you regardless of the situation. So I think, Newton, what I am really enjoying about this, is that sooner or later that self control of yours will run out long before mine, and you will simply be forced to accept that I’m right as per usual.”

Newton visibly swallows. “ _Fuck_ you.”

“No. Give in yet?”

He snorts, shifting tactics. “Oh come the fuck off, you're just as hard as I am and I haven't even touched you.” Beginning to sit up, he pleads “Let me just jerk you off a little bit, okay?”

Hermann smiles very, very serenely, “No,” and without even having to look; two steps ahead in peripheral vision, he leans forward, snatches Newton’s hands mid-reach, and pins them down above his head. 

Newton freezes for a moment like the wind has been knocked out of him. His eyes are huge and dark, locked on Hermann’s own, unblinking in contrast to his rapidly rising and falling chest. His mouth parts slightly, a puff of air escaping. Hermann stretches himself out over him, long past trying to hide his look of triumph. The game, he knows, was won the moment Newton leaned in to that intoxicating mix of mortification and desire that urges his face ever-pinker. Hermann simply wants to know what the reasoning is. Color him curious (and color his husband about to crack). 

Newton presses his lips together and tucks his face into the space between his forearm and shoulder, eyes now darting anywhere but Hermann’s face. “Babe, come on,” he whines, “there’s no way you can be this invested in me saying a bunch of nice shit about myself.”

“I’m interested in you admitting I’m right,” says Hermann blithely. He moves to hold Newton’s wrists down with one hand, fingers spread stark and pale against the bright colors of his inner wrists, so he can return the other to his hips. His thumb strokes higher than before, along the crease of lower stomach and thigh. 

Newton makes a frustrated noise somewhere between a moan and a screech. “Okay, but what if I don't _want_ to?! What if giving myself a bunch of random compliments I don'tー what if it feels weird?”

He says those last words with a chip of vulnerability in his voice, even more than is already present in his flushed, trembling state. Hermann feels a rush of tenderness. Newton’s hair, loose and curling at the ends from the heat of their bodies, is splayed out around his head and sticking, sweaty, to his neck and forehead. He’s rubbing his middle finger against the side of his wedding ring, a habit when thinking or nervous. In the soft light of Hermann’s bedside lamp, his freckles glow midsummer blue ever-so-slightly. His eyes are like a beckoning swimming pool in the stifling heat of July; bright, enticing, something inexorably clever always dancing just beneath the surface. They’re turned away, swamped with desire. 

Hermann presses his lips to one hipbone. “If you tell me, truly, why, I’ll kiss you.”

There’s a long moment of just their breathing, twin lines of breath echoing in the quiet of their bedroom. Then, Newton sighs. Some of the tension bleeds out of his body as he steadies himself, then says, “I'm stillー I'm still working on it, alright? It's easier when you're the one saying everything; I still feel super embarrassed about it, but when I do it, it feels…”

He trails off, but Hermann remains silent, insisting on a conclusion. Finally he blurts out, “It feels like I'm lying! I don't think any of it; I'm glad I get to, y’know, look the way I want to again, and I'm trying really hard at this whole being a good person and husband andー whatever, thing, but it just feels… I dunno, cheap. I promised myself I wouldn't ever lie to you again, so, there you go. That's why I don't wanna say it.”

Hermann lets go of Newton’s hands and hips and reaches up to cup his face, and kisses him softly, and strokes his cheeks with his thumbs. Newton leans into the touch, sighing against him. 

“Thank you,” he says. “I know that was hard.”

“No fucking kidding,” Newton agrees, but he smiles slightly. Hermann gives him a knowing look.

“I still think you can do it. I think you can find one thing, one nice thing, to say about yourself and the body that you took back, and that I love very much.” He kisses the corner of his mouth. “For me?”

Newton chases one more from him, then lets his head fall back onto the pillow. He swallows. “Okay. Okay, I… I like my hands. 

“I like how they're good at building things, and being careful, and I've put so much muscle memory in them over the years from everything I've done. I like how most of my calluses never faded no matter what, and how they're warm enough that when I hold your cold ones, we get the thermodynamic equilibrium. I like the wedding ring on one of them, and the tattoo of it underneath. I like painting my nails; it's fun, and I've gotten pretty good at the designs and stuff.”

He grins. “I know it's cheating, but I really do like fingering you with them. I know you like how they feel, and seriously, I like making you feel good. You're my husband, dummy. And… I like how they've stopped shaking.” He pauses. “I didn't know if they ever would. But they're steady again. And I did that. I think that's what I'm most proud of.”

Hermann feels his face split into a wide, besotted, ugly smile, the kind only one person in the world is allowed to see and able to create. Unable to help himself, he kisses Newton again, deeper and unmistakably loving. Newton cups the back of his neck with one hand, his racing pulse apparent against their skin. 

Hermann kisses his nose next, then the junction of shoulder and neck, then the center of Newton’s chest in the space between his scars. He drags his mouth down, nipping with the barest hint of teeth, to between his legs. “Thank you, darling.” Newton is watching him with lust-blown pupils. “Now just relax. Let’s get you your reward.”

He slides his fingers back in, three this time, and spreads them to curl deep into Newton’s cunt. Hermann’s lips wrap around his clit like a vice and begin to suck, hard, tongue stroking back and forth across the sensitive bundle of nerves. Newton lets out a string of profanities, language leaving him almost immediately, replaced with raw, animalistic noises of satisfaction. He doesn’t have the sense to even push himself up, fingers groping blindly for Hermann’s hair until Hermann pushes them through it contentedly.

It barely takes a minute, desperate as Newton is, until those delicious thighs are tensing around Hermann’s head, their thrusts becoming jerkier and less coordinated. He lets his fingers slow gradually as Newton’s voice returns to its normal pitch, breaths ragged, aftershocks tensing his shoulders and feet. 

“Guh,” he manages. Hermann raises his head, mouth slick with release, and smiles. “Indeed.”

“You can,” Newton gestures vaguely, limbs spent and useless. His hand motions in the direction of his chest to the bright swirls of color he knows Hermann has a particular pleasure for debauching. Hermann’s mouth goes dry. His cock, leaking onto the bedsheets, gives a violent twitch.

“Right,” he breathes, “yes,” and settles his bad knee on one of the pillows strewn around them. Straddling Newton’s waist, he runs his hand over the length of his cock, smearing precome across the head. Newton shakily lifts a hand and covers the rest of it with his fingers. 

He lets out a soft moan, stroking with as much coordination as he can to match Hermann’s own rhythm. When Hermann spills over his fingers and across his chest, painting his tattoos with long, white ropes of come, he eases him through it with a breathy sigh. “God,” he says, “Christ. I’m in love with you.”

“I certainly hope so,” Hermann pants, reaching out to steady himself on Newton’s chest. He spreads some of the come beneath his hand. “Gorgeous. You’re a wreck.”

“Oh, yeah, and whose fault is that?” Newton grins, the lopsided set of his red, puffy mouth looking somewhere between comical and alluring. “I can’t believe you have a reverse praise kink, dude. That’s kinda crazy, even for you.”

“Hmph. And yours is entirely typical.” Hermann lowers himself down and slots his head into the crook of Newton’s neck. The fact that he’s lying in his own come is oddly romantic. The things this man has done to him. “One cannot argue with results, however.”

“I think I pulled something in my thigh.” He settles a hand against Hermann’s lower back, palm rough and warm. “Asshole. Lineham is rolling in her goddamn grave.”

“The afterglow with you is scintillating as always, darling,” Hermann says. He plants a kiss on his husband’s jaw. “Let’s get cleaned up. If you’ll indulge me a bit more, I’d like to wash your hair.”

A tinge of pink comes flooding back to Newton’s face. He smiles, so wide and unfettered it looks almost drunken. “Y’know, sometimes I wonder how the hell I deserve you.” Before Hermann can reply, Newton settles a hand on his cheek and curls a finger behind his ear. “Thank you for making me finally figure it out.”

“You’re ridiculous,” says Hermann, which, as many of the things he says often do, translates perfectly to, “I love you.”


End file.
